with president obama's very public attempt to pressure congress into putting off billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, cuts he fears will wreck the u.s. economic recovery. basically he wants lawmakers to kick the can down the road one more time. let's go to our white house correspondent dan lothian. dan is joining us. dan, the president made a little bit of a surprise appearance over in the white house briefing room. >> reporter: that's right. very surprising because the president in the past has criticized these short-term deals saying that this is not what the american people sent their elected officials to washington to do. you have this march 1st deadline quickly approaching. while congress is trying to work on a bigger budget, 1 pine point $2 trillion package, the president says they need more time in order to continue tipping away at the problem. the big concern is that everyone believes that the economy is moving in the right direction. the president is pointing to auto sales, the housing, to manufacturing. and so there's this worry that if this see quester happens, if these deep
